Internationalizing the curriculum...

I was reading a new report by the American Council on Education, "Building a Strategic Framework for Comprehensive Internationalization" and some passages in the report I found interesting. First, a short observation in the report on language learning: "A concrete example of adding outcome measures to input measures- or substituting for inputs entirely- can be found in foreign language teaching. Many institutions express their language requirements in terms of course requirements or "seat time", but few actually set these requirements in terms of proficiency in listening, comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing." This echoes Derek Bok's point of view.

More interestingly, on p. 11 of the report is a list of possible learning objectives from internationalizing the curriculum, and among them we find, "appreciates the language, art, religion, philosophy, and material culture of different cultures; accepts the cultural differences and tolerates cultural ambiguity; demonstrates an ongoing willingness to seek out international or intercultural oppportunities." Now these learning objectives are, I submit for discussion, profoundly liberal. They are profoundly anti-conservative. A conservative does not urgently want or sense the value in being exposed to other cultures; a conservative thinks that his or her own tradition is good enough. A conservative is wary of being seduced, is nervous about relativistic thinking, and believes that the need is for more respect rather than more understanding.

This conservative view is quite different, I hasten to add, from the view of libertarians like Tyler Cowen (see his blog Marginal Revolution), who celebrate the internationalization of culture, where Safeway sells sushi and taquitos and one might possibly become convinced, after listening fourteen times to Raquel Zozaya's rendition of Cuban troubadour Silvio Rodriguez' song La Gota de Rocio, that maybe the island of Cuba is experiencing a different history from the one that one thought.

That is one way of seeing these issues. Another way to see them is through the conservative lens; in this view internationalizing the curriculum amounts to devaluing the best of American society. American studies, in this view, are profoundly anti-liberal. A liberal does not want to embrace the 200+ years of history of the United States as a unique and inspiring achievement; a liberal thinks his or her own tradition is just as shameful as that of other countries. A liberal is wary of hurting the feelings of others by making value judgements, is nervous about truthfulness, and believes that the need is for courtesy and curtsies rather than a finger in the face.

I am not making political statements here, rather provocations. My own views I keep close; the purpose of this blog is to present issues of curriculum choice in their full complexity and with eyes open about their implications. There should be no other way to conduct this kind of public discussion in an open society.